Kyungseo Lee

Within my practice, I deal pictorially with the consequences of conflicts in differing emotions or values to others. I start my painting without a preconceived idea about the outcome in order to access my unconscious. From there on, images are worked upon and refined. The erotically charged images serve as a stressor—and this conflicted ambivalence of the ‘body image’ can additionally serve as an opportunity for one to view in different perspectives. Self-awareness and confusion are reflected in my paintings, which correspond to a loose painterly style where the figure soon dissolves into surface mark and gesture. 

Specifically in this exhibition, I examine the idea of Pharmakon, a concept introduced by Jacques Derrida in his book Plato’s Pharmacy—engaging with the term of ambivalence. It is derived from the Greek source term φάρμακον (phármakon), which means something could contain its possibility to be a remedy or a poison at the same time. This has been a continuing topic and interest for me, since my first solo in LKIF Gallery, ‘Love Me / Love Me Not’, discussed the difficulty of defining human emotions into certain categories and the grey areas of decision-making in our lives.

Presenting both streams of paintings in a big and small scale, I aim to delve deep into my methodology of handling paint within the painting itself and the conceptual development in my practice by relating the scale and the bodily movement.

One of the pivotal changes in my practice is that the figures morph into abstraction; particularly the iridescent colours of my recent paintings use the stage(canvas) as a psychedelic playground. My interest in fluidity started off by thinking ‘how can the ephemeral—in this case, the paint—can carry the infinite; In other words, my aim of painting, became capturing the transcendent aspect of life. In order to achieve this, I  do not use the methodology of depiction as in representation, but rather choose to suggest the open proposals such as giving hints by leaving the canvas empty, or bringing the spontaneity to the fullest extent by letting the colours flow and merge themselves. These tactics are closely attached to the paintings in large scale, which brings a conversation of relationship between the canvas and the body of the artist.

While the gestural brush marks in big canvases address the movement of my entire body, detailed paintings of my self-portrait studies show intimate connection with myself and the painting. These intimate scale works show a concentration and focus yet muteness to the subject which is simply documented rather than posed. Over a controlled space, there are recognisable configurations we may identify as a body, which are shifting in and out of abstraction. The tiny size of the board may create some limits, making huge gestures impossible, but rather makes another opportunity to internally address those questions of perception and to silently step towards the viewer—which is another ambivalence I find in variations with scale.